At present, such services are accessible from a mobile terminal connected to mobile telecommunications networks such as a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network or a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network.
To facilitate understanding the invention, it is described using GPRS and UMTS terminology. However, the invention applies to all communications systems using the same techniques to identify a communications network.
In the above mobile networks, in order to select a communications network offering services, it is necessary to select a name identifying the communications network. To set up a connection between a mobile terminal and a particular communications network, the name is sent via the mobile network to equipment managing access to the communications networks.
In current GPRS and UMTS networks, the name identifying a communications network is called its Access Point Name (APN) and the equipment managing access to the communications networks is called a Gateway GPRS Service Node (GGSN).
An APN mainly comprises a domain name corresponding to the selected communications network, an identifier of the operator managing the communications network, and a GPRS or UMTS mobile network identifier. The APN format is standardized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
The functions of a GGSN include recognizing an APN received from a mobile terminal and setting up a connection to the communications network corresponding to that APN. The GGSN is also standardized by the ETSI.
An access protocol is initialized once an APN has been selected on the mobile terminal. In the GPRS and the UMTS, this protocol is the Packet Data Protocol (PDP). A procedure for setting up the connection from the mobile terminal to the GGSN is executed. To enable the connection to be set up, a link is created across the mobile network to the selected communications network. In a GPRS or UMTS network, this link is called a “PDP context”. It enables the mobile terminal to access all the services of the communications network, and leads to the display on the mobile terminal of a home page of the communications network showing the services offered.
The ETSI standard provides for a plurality of connections to different communications networks to be set up simultaneously from the same mobile terminal.
At present, a list of APNs corresponding to the communications networks is stored in the user's mobile terminal, for example in the terminal itself, in a SIM or USIM card of the mobile terminal, in a memory card, or in any other data storage device.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,213 describes a communications system regularly sending services available to a mobile terminal (which it refers to as a communication unit) from an RF communications system to a memory in the mobile terminal (which it refers to as a service table with a list of services). The list is stored in the mobile terminal so that it can be displayed on its screen.
Memory space must therefore be provided for this list. From the technical point of view, this memory space has a finite and limited size, whereas the number of communications networks available is continually increasing.
The user must regularly enter new APNs and update old APNs, either manually or by downloading a list. This updating process is a source of data entry errors, for example, which interfere with access to the communications networks to which the user subscribes.
Moreover, an APN identifying the communications network, as defined hereinabove, is somewhat inexplicit, as it does not show the services offered by the communications network or the content of the services.
Finally, to access a communications network, the user selects an APN from the list stored in the mobile terminal, in order to set up a connection to the corresponding communications network. To access another communications network, the user must use the mobile terminal to select another APN from the same list.